"Flee From the Land of the North" (Part of Chapter 3)

In Zechariah chapter 2, the growth and expansion of Jerusalem is prophesied. The city would grow to such an extent that the only wall able to encircle it one day would be the Lord Himself. Relative with the time of this expansion is a warning to the Jewish people to flee from the land of the north. The prophet puts it this way:

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“Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of men and livestock in it. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,” declares the Lord, “and I will be its glory within. Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven,” declares the Lord. “Come, O Zion! Escape, you who live in the Daughter of Babylon!” (Zechariah 2:5–7)

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Jerusalem always had a wall around it from ancient times. During its long history, some wall placements had changed either through expansion or necessitated by warfare, but it wasn’t until the 1860s that new neighborhoods began to spring up outside the walled city. These included such neighborhoods as Mishkenot Sha’ananim and Nahalat Shiv’ah—founded in the 1860s, and Me’ah She’arim, founded in 1873. By May 2007, Jerusalem had a population of over 732,000 living in an area of 125 square kilometers. The Old Walled City ’s population within this figure was 32,488 people, not even 4.5 percent of the total population. The Walled City's land area is less than one square kilometer—swallowed up by the modern city 125 times over. Yes, Zechariah’s prophecy is being fulfilled.

But coupled with the expansion that began in the 1860s was the warning, “Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north.” The land of the north is that giant European continent to the north of Israel, but in particular and more precisely, Eastern Europe and the western part of what was called the Soviet Union. This includes today the areas of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, the Ukraine, and the western part of the Russian Federation all the way down to the Caucasus Mountains east of the Black Sea. In this area was concentrated the largest Jewish population on earth prior to World War II. >>click here for next page>>